ByRon Martorelli
Last month the students in my high school collected cans of food for a local food bank. The cans were to be packed into boxes and distributed for the Thanksgiving holiday. I’m sure this event was repeated at many elementary schools, middle schools, high schools and colleges all around the country.
Somehow, I was volunteered to assist the students in the packing process. My group of about twenty students, a mixture of boys and girls, was to collect the boxes after they were packed, then tape them up, and stack them onto pallets to be fork lifted to the waiting truck.
The students began to stack the boxes on the pallet, but in a very unsecure and haphazard manner. As soon as I saw it I had visions of boxes tumbling off the fork lift, so I stopped the process and told them we had to restack them. “Let’s at least use the Lego method of building” was my suggestion. Only one boy knew what I was talking about, and he began to lead the others in stacking the boxes so that the seams overlapped and the boxes were lined up neatly and precisely.
So how does this relate to CS? It made me think about the fact that many of our students do not engage in too many hands-on construction, engineering, or designing projects throughout their K-12 education. Yes, there are some building block type experiences in the lower grades and some science experiments in the upper grades that involve some of this type of experience, but overall it is pretty minimal. This is especially concerning if you factor in the reduced number of students who participate in after school activities that would provide such opportunities. Programs such as YMCAs, Boy Scouts, or Girl Scouts often include these types of activities, but enrollment in these organizations is generally down. After-school building experiences (whether tree houses or doll houses) seems to be a thing of the past, replaced by afternoons of video gaming or computer based social networking.
Many high schools in the U.S. no longer include courses in wood shop, automotive technology, or metal shop as part of core curriculum. Some schools are starting to include a type of Tech Shop, where students use computer software to create animated experiments and design. Without a physical experience in conjunction with this software, however, the student loses the chance to actually build anything.
If we are to educate students in computer science curriculum of programming, computer aided design, software engineering, or animation it seems that it will be important to provide them with hands-on experiences that will give them the opportunity to put into practice what they design. The possible failures of translating their computer based design into reality would provide them with additional learning opportunities. Experiencing the success of that translation will provide them with incentive and enthusiasm to go beyond their initial experiences.
Ron Martorelli
CSTA Board